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Real DMD's In Pinball Cabs


H4CK3R

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XPin here...

There are way to many forums to keep track of. This is the first I have heard of a power problem with XPin on virtual Pins. Can you help me understand what you are seeing?

Xpin

feel free to email me via the tech support on the xpinpinball.com site.

As Brett knows from his great technical support my XPin DMD works just fine with the PinDMD2.

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As far as im aware (Brett might need to correct me) The only difference on the new DMD is the connector so this should not effect any thing? Me and Brett did agree having the pinDMD use open drain gpio would work better with the xPin DMD rather then the push pull gpio the standard firmware uses. Hopefully that firmware solves your problem :).

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 1 year later...
Plasma DMD over an LED one? Why is it cheaper? Any problems with the plasma i should know about?

There are pros and cons to each.

The main downside of the LEDs is that no one currently makes a fully contiguous pixel array. If you look closely at any of the LED panels currently available, you'll see that they're divided into little 8x8 arrays that are pasted together. There are visible seams between the blocks. The plasma panels are seamless. (Vishay used to make a seamless amber LED panel that was designed as a drop-in replacement for the plasmas. They might even still make them, and you *can* still get them, but they're ridiculously expensive, around $600.) The other potential downside of the LEDs is that the color doesn't exactly match the classic pinball DMD color; if you want to precisely re-create the experience of playing a mid-90s game, the plasma is a better match. Depending on your point of view, though, that might be an upside, in that you can find LED panels in a variety of different colors - you could go with something unusual and distinctive if you're not aiming specifically for a re-creation.

There are a couple of negatives with plasmas, too. First, they don't last as long as LEDs; the pixels contain gases that leak out over time, which reduces the brightness gradually, and often unevenly - lots of old plasma panels that have been in use for a while have rows, columns, or random pixels that are dead or practically dead. However, the lifetime of a plasma panel appears to be a function of how often it's used - the more it's on, the shorter its life. In arcade use, where machines are usually left on all day, the panels tend to start dying within a few years. If you're planning on home use, where you're only using it occasionally and turning it off when not in use, the lifetime should be very long, maybe effectively infinite. I have a Theatre of Magic that's been in home use its whole life, and its plasma DMD still runs like new. The second negative with plasmas is that they're a bit of a hassle to power on a virtual cab, and somewhat expensive for the extra parts needed - they need several different voltage supplies, some at relatively high voltages. However, VirtuaPin offers a pretty much plug-and-play kit with all of the components you need for that, which largely eliminates the hassle (but there's still the extra cost, of course). I think the LEDs all just need 5V supplies.

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Thx Mjrhp, now that you mention it, i have seen those lines in the LEDS on close picture shots. Yeah i saw for the plasmas that they recommend the transformer and piggyback board. $40 each. Now it makes sense they are $169. I asked Zeb if i needed those and he confirmed i did. I didn't know real pinball machines had plasmas. Well based on your Theatre of Magic lasting so long, I think I will go with the plasma. Those lines will bug me.

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  • 7 months later...
  • 11 months later...

Just came across this thread (only got a real DMD recently).

 

If anyone is playing Pinball FX2 or The Pinball Arcade, you probably want this. It's a small tool I wrote that adds real DMD support to PBFX and TPA. It's free and open source and it supports pretty much every display out there. However if you have one that you like to add support to, let me know!

 

Cheers!

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